#46. 아재개그 -- Dad jokes (feat. Mamamoo)

Okay, I'll admit this now. I am a big fan of Mamamoo. And they just came out with a new song today that has such clever lyrics, that despite the fact that I had already scheduled my posts to appear for the next week, I am going to change the order around and write a post about how cute their lyrics are.

Before going into that, though, one of the readers of this blog had commented before that certain ideas seem to transcend languages (the example that prompted this discussion was the fact that when someone is beyond frustrating, Koreans call them "carcinogenic," or "발암" -- on Reddit, you often see the comments of the form "this post just gave me cancer.")

Another instance of the transcendence of ideas is the idea of "dad jokes." For some reason, in both anglophone and Korean cultures, people think that dads really like lame jokes (Given that my dad is the master of lame pun-y jokes, I can't dispute that!)

The Korean equivalent of "dad jokes" is "아재개그." The word "아재" is a 경상 dialect (경상도 사투리) for "아저씨," which officially refers to married men (but in reality, it's hard to figure out whether someone is married or not, so calling people who look like they're past their late thirties is a fair game!) And using 사투리 (dialect) adds familiarity to "아저씨."

Anyway, here are some examples of 아재개그 in Korean!

Q: 미치기 싫으면 어떻게 하죠? (What to do if I don't want to go crazy?)
A: 솔을 치면 됩니다. (Hit the sol-note instead.)

Most dad jokes rely on lame puns. This is one example of it. The word "미치다" means crazy, but you could also break it up into two parts to get "미 치다," which means to hit "미." Koreans use the note names for music scales (so cdefgabc becomes do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do (도레미파솔라시도)). They're telling you that if you don't want to hit "미" then just go ahead and hit "솔."

Q: 이 바나나를 먹으면 어떻게 될까요? (What happens when you eat this banana?)
A: 저한테 반하게 됩니다. (You will fall for me.)

This is another pun. When you read out the word "바나나," it sounds exactly like the word "반하나," which means "to fall for." It's a silly play on two words sounding the same!

Q: 저한테 불만있으세요? (Do you have problems with me?)
A: 아니요, 물도 있어요 (No, I also have water.)

"불만있다" means "to have a complaint." But you can also break it up to "불만 있다," or "only have fire." Well, they're telling you that not only do they have only fire, but also they have water.

Q: 지금 제주도에요. (I'm at Jeju Island.)
A: 재주도 좋으시네요. (You're talented.)

This one is a bit of a stretch. The word "제주도" sounds like "재주도" which is "재주" + "도 (particle meaning 'also')" So when someone says that they're in Jeju Island, the dad joke is that they must be talented/lucky to be there. (In the song itself, the lyrics are: "내 맘을 흔든 너 재주도 좋아", or "lucky you, you made me fall for you.")

Well, these dad jokes, or 아재개그, make up the first part of Mamamoo's new song "아재개그." Here is the music video, which is subtitled because even the native Koreans would appreciate it!

And here are the rest of the 아재개그 that appear in the song:

Q: 잘생긴 부처님은 뭐라고 부를까요? (What do you call a handsome buddha?)
A: 부처핸섬! (Literally, buddha handsome, but it sounds like "put your hands up!")

The Korean word for "buddha" is "부처." If you were a buddhist and you wanted to talk about buddha, you would add "-님" to it to make it "부처님," to elevate buddha to a status higher than your own (this is common in all the religions in that you add "-님" to your deity. In Christianity, which was mixed with the Korean shamanism when it was first introduced, the deity's name is "하늘" or "the sky." So you call the deity "하늘님" or "하느님" which is the common usage nowadays.)

Q: 소금이 죽으면 어떻게 돼요? (What happens when salt dies?")
A: 죽염이 돼요. (It becomes bamboo salt.)
While "죽" means "bamboo" and "염" means "salt" in Chinese, this joke gives "죽" a secondary meaning of "dead," since it shares the same letter as "죽다 (to die)." Bamboo salt is made by putting regular salt in the hollow of bamboo branches, then roasting it over fire over time.

Q: 복숭아가 결혼하면 뭐게? (What happens when a peach marries?)
A: 웨딩피치. (It becomes Wedding Peach.)
"Wedding Peach" is a Japanese anime that had its heyday in Korea in the late 90s. It is similar to "Sailor Moon" -- a bunch of girls transform (into warriors in bridal dresses) to fight the evil.

Q: 만인의 파이는 뭐게? (What is the pie that everyone loves?)
A: 와이파이 (Wi-Fi.)
Since Korean alphabet doesn't distinguish between "P" and "F," the "pie" that everyone ("만인" or "ten thousand people") loves is "wi-fi."

Q: 소녀시대는 가게에서 뭘 할까요? (What does Girls' Generation do in stores?")
A: 티파니 (Tiffany/they sell t-shirts)
Girls' Generation is a popular girl group in Korea, and Tiffany is a member. "Tiffany," or "티파니" in Korean, sounds like "티 파니" or "Selling T." Koreans often just say "티" instead of "티셔츠 (t-shirts)."

Q: 소가 올라가면 어떻게 되나요? (What happens when an ox goes up?)
A: 소오름 (Goosebumps).
"소오름" is a slang for "소름" meaning "goosebumps." It can be broken up into "소 오름" or "the rise of ox."

Hopefully you enjoyed some of the Korean dad jokes -- they seem just as lame as the English ones. But then, the more lame a dad joke is, the better, right?

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Addendum: Per request, here is the translation + explanation of the interlude (where the Mamamoo members are watching the TV broadcasting more 아재개그):

치맥먹을래? 여기요! 여기요! 서울역이요!

The speaker decide that he wants to order "치맥" (치킨과 맥주, chicken and beer), so he calls the waiter over. In Korean, the standard way to signal a waiter over is to say "여기요 (here)!" But "여기요" sounds exactly like "역이요 (this is a station)," so he adds a lame dad joke, saying "서울역이요 (this is Seoul station)." So, first he notes that there are two ways to interpret the short sentence "여기요," then he adds a few words to the beginning of that sentence to clarify the meaning of the sentence, showing the readers that he chose the very minor and obscure meaning over the meaning that everyone would have guessed.

저기요, 저기요, 옛날옛적이요!

Continuing with the above theme of same sound + adding a few words to the beginning to change the meaning, this time, he begins with the phrase "저기요 (excuse me)!" But again, "저기요" sounds exactly like "적이요 (doesn't even make a ton of sense)," and adds a few words at the beginning to get "옛날옛적이요 (once upon a time)." Seriously, these guys are even worse at dad jokes than Mamamoo!

A: 여기올 때 뭐 타고 왔어? (What did you ride to get here?)
B: 가르마 타고 왔지. (I parted my hair.)
A: 나는 커피타고왔는데! (I just made a coffee from coffee mix!)

This joke is more in line with the dad jokes in Mamamoo's songs. The verb "타다" usually refers to riding cars, but its very minor usage is "가르마 타다," or "part one's hair" (Koreans have a word for the part itself; it's called "가르마.") So when one guy asks what the other guy took as transportation to get there, the guy intentionally misunderstands the meaning of "to take" to tell him that he parted his hair, as they use the same verb.

Another minor usage of "타다" is "to mix powder into liquid." In Korea, coffee mix is fairly common. Instead of fancy espresso machines, a lot of workplaces will provide you with coffee mix, and you mix the powder with the hot water to make coffee yourself. So when the guy B gives a dumb answer, the guy A gives an even dumber answer, saying "I just made coffee!"

A: 무슨 치킨 먹을래? (What kind of chicken do you want?)
B: 난 저기... 로보캅이 먹는거. (The kind that Robocop eats.)
A: 그게 뭐야? (What's that?)
B: 음~치킨, 음~치킨!

Listen to this joke, rather than just reading it! "음~치킨" definitely looks like a kind of chicken (like "양념치킨") but it also feels like a robot might make this sound when it's moving. This joke is definitely funnier than the others!

A: 엄마! 여기 무좀 주세요! 마마, 무!

This one should be pretty easy to understand. The man wants some pickled radish to go with his chicken, so he calls over the waitress (when they're not young, you sometimes call them "이모 (aunt)" or "엄마 (mother)") and asks for the radish (무). Of course, this is the same thing as "Mama, 무!" or, the name of the group "Mamamoo!"